Comments on: The Sims 4: 10 Million Copies Sold?

By: Retto Beere

Retto Beere — Mon, 25 Jun 2018 00:29:00 +0000

The 2012 TS2 number you found is not from EA and they’re not reliable at all. The most recent official TS2 number I know is from 2006 (EA’s press release when Pets lanunched) where EA stated that 7 million copies had been sold (which literally contradicts with the 2012 third party number that said only 6+ million had been sold on PC).

The 10 million TS3 numbers was very vague due to combining at least 5 different platforms. It could even include sales on smartphones as the TS3 iOS launched around same time as TS3 on PC and it’s a paid app (not free to play).

By: svetlanabanana

svetlanabanana — Mon, 25 Jun 2018 00:14:00 +0000

So, they basically announced the 4.5 and 10 million mark for TS3, which is way more than they’ve done (officially) for TS4? Not to mention that I can find sales figures for TS2 as recent as 2012, ie, 3 years after that series was done.
For what it’s worth, the EA ‘no release of sales data’ policy seems to be horizontal to several titles and probably has more to do with games like Battlefront 2 and Titanfall than The Sims.

By: Retto Beere

Retto Beere — Sun, 24 Jun 2018 23:36:00 +0000

They’re really not. For instance the last official TS3 PC numbers from EA was 4.5 million sold in early 2010. They were radio silent ever since then and we have no idea just exactly how many it has sold since then. There are third party numbers around but those are unreliable.

By: svetlanabanana

svetlanabanana — Sun, 24 Jun 2018 23:22:00 +0000

Sales figures for TS2 and 3 are much better documented than sales figures for TS4, though. This radio silence policy is only as recently as 2015-ish.

By: Retto Beere

Retto Beere — Sun, 24 Jun 2018 19:33:00 +0000

Not disclosing sales numbers is a company wide strategy. It’s the same reason why we’re not sure how many copies of TS2/3 base game have sold in their lifetime.

By: svetlanabanana

svetlanabanana — Sun, 24 Jun 2018 19:27:00 +0000

I honestly don’t know what to make of it. I’ve never seen hard numbers for TS4 sales and I think it’s weird how Gurus don’t seem to want to talk about that and give the weirdest replies every time the subject comes up. There’s likely a mandate from EA not to talk about it and I don’t understand why. I’ve written a post about it in this thread, I think. What I am pretty sure is that this statement is, like many other things re: TS4 sales, nebulous enough to sound like a shining endorsement without parting too much info, like the reports that TS4 sales were up in the last quarter of 2017 (up from what?, etc.) and that’s why it’s solid enough to be a confirmation of any kind.

By: Retto Beere

Retto Beere — Sun, 24 Jun 2018 18:26:00 +0000

Are you accusing that she’s lying with “definitely somewhere over 5 million”? Cause there’s no other ways to interpret that sentence. She’s being deflect-y about exactly how many copies were sold (how much over 5 million? 6 million? 7 million?) but she’s not deflect-y at all about selling over 5 million.

By: svetlanabanana

svetlanabanana — Sun, 24 Jun 2018 18:02:00 +0000

I feel like you’re not getting it. Of COURSE they have TS4 sales numbers. Please reread my last post. But she was directly asked if the 5 million figure was accurate and instead of doing the normal thing for someone who knows how many copies TS4 has sold, like saying ‘yes we are up to X copies as of last quarter’ and instead, basically said ‘yep that’s about right’ and immediately followed it with “we don’t really track specific numbers”, which, again, is highly unlikely that they don’t. This is not a confirmation; this is a deflection dressed up as a confirmation.

I don’t really understand your argument re: she meant she didn’t have the number on the gender (not toddlers) update. First of all, the question she was asked was if the 5 million sold copies number was correct. Unless you think she randomly switched topics in the middle of answering a straightforward question, it’s safe to assume she’s still talking about TS4 sales numbers. Second of all, in order to get the gender update you need to have bought TS4 to begin with, so even if she meant that the two figures are connected. And they definitely have a way of knowing how many active users they have, because they keep talking about it in 2018 in the context of their pivot to a live services model.

By: Retto Beere

Retto Beere — Sun, 24 Jun 2018 17:44:00 +0000

They most certainly have sales numbers. Do you honestly believe they don’t know how many copies TS4 has sold? Her “we don’t track specific numbers” refers to how many are playing & seen the toddler update as they don’t have specific numbers on that (she estimated million of players have done so).

They do have TS4’s sales numbers and she gave a definite answer “somewhere over 5 million”.

By: svetlanabanana

svetlanabanana — Sun, 24 Jun 2018 17:38:00 +0000

They did call it a weird thing (‘active users’?) which makes me think they were including mobile app downloads, some other people theorized they meant Sims players overall (as in, in every generation of The Sims) although I don’t know how you would get to that number since TS1 and TS2 don’t require Origin to play. I don’t know why EA is so cagey about this if they’re doing so well.